Title page for ETD etd-11212012-040232

The nature of postmaterialism :a comparative study of West Germany and the United States

Degree

Master of Arts

Department

Political Science

Advisory Committee

Advisor Name

Title

Shaiko, Ronald G.

Committee Chair

Shingles, Richard D.

Committee Member

Taylor, Charles Lewis

Committee Member

Keywords

Germany (West)

Date of Defense

1989-06-27

Availability

restricted

Abstract

The social and economic structures in western societies are
changing and with them are the political values of their
citizens. This study investigates the nature of post-materialist value orientations in the United States and West Germany. The research aimed at determining whether the indicators that Ronald Inglehart developed almost twenty years ago for explaining value—shifts are reliable tools to
predict the nature of post-materialist values. These factors
are: rising levels of education, a distinct cohort
experience, and increased levels of economic security.With the help of mass-survey data from 1974 and 1980 that were collected in the United States and west Germany it was
shown that there are other factors that are more powerful
for predicting post-material values than the ones specified
in Inglehart‘s theory. Moreover, the predictors are of a
different explanatory power in the two countries under
consideration. A preliminary attempt was made to find the
reasons for the phenomenon of national differences.